The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1887-07-09
TEMPERANCE READING.
THE RUM THIRST.

HTreating-The "Personal.Liberty''O ues-
tion.
1t is a fact known to all men that
drunkards and drinking men are made
by convivial drinking, and especially
by the abominable habit of treating"
which prevails so extensively. Two
men meet in saloon, or perhaps
several come together; one invites the
Others to drink at his expense. Then
another of the party, not wishing to
appear churlish, proposes another
drink at his expense; and so it goes
round the circle until as many drinks
have been taken as there are persons
therein. 1t is plain that such a course
of training will very speedily beget in
the system of one subjected to it, the
abominable Drink Thirst-that crav-
ing, gnawiEg desire for alcoholic
stimulus which is incomprehensible to
any one not yet its victim; yet which
is most awful reality to those who
are.
There is no human appetite so ter
rible in its cravings as this. One of
its slaves told the writer few years
since; "When this Internal craving
comes upon me, if glass of whisky
were set before me- and knew, to an
absolute certainty, that l would be
stricken dead one Minute after l had
swallowed it, I would gulp it down"
The Drink Thirst is the only earthly
approximation to the tortures of the
damned in perdition. 1t is consuming
fire within the vitals, which can only
be eXtinguished for the time being by
alcohol, and this in turn increases the
internal thirst on the next occasion.
1t is plain, too, that as the very great
majority of our drunkards - and a
drunkard is nothing but man in
whom this Rum thirst has been estab-
Ished-are caused by this convivial
system of drinking, if the opportunity
for treating were removed-if there
was not on every square of every city
of the land, on every street of every
village, places where this conviviality
can be ulged-those men who have
not yet established this fearful Rum
thirst, this habit of drinking, all of the
rising generation who are as vet too
young to have commenced, would be
saved from all danger of ever becom-
ing drunkards.
The taste for liquor is not natural
one. There are some persons who are
under an inherited curse, in whom the
taste for rum is horrible legacy left
them by an Incorporate father or
grandfather; but they are as yet only a
small proportion of the entire commu-
nifty. The taste of liquor, to an unac-
customed palate, is generally unwel-
come. A young man, to become a
drinking man, has first to overcome
this repugnance In very many cases,
probably nine out of ten, this would
never happen if the opportunity for
convivial drinking were taken away.
How can this be done? Simply by clos
ing the places devoted thereto. Shut up
every saloon, every public drinking
place, and nine-tenths of the next gener-
alton of drunkards would be saved.
But when such a subject is preached,
up comes the cry that there is an in
vasion of personal liberty" Now,
so far as the rights of the rumseller are
concerned, or the individual right of
each separate drinker to indulge his
taste as he may choose, they are but a
small proportion of the question at
issue. 1t is not q question whether A
has the right to sell glass of whisky
to b, or whether G has right to buy
from ID schooner of beer and drink
it; but it also embraces the question
whether the wife and children and
other dependents of B and c.. the
drinkers, have any rights which A or
ID or B or c are bound to respect.
The question is whether A has a
right to fill his till with the har5 earn
ings of BIS daily labor in exchange for
the vile body-rot in which he deals,
while BIS wife and little ones are starry
ing at homo, and after getting from
him his last nickel, and stealing from
him his brains as well, turning him
out, to stagger home and beat and
abuse them. 1t is not question
whether John Smith, when sober,
is good citizen whose right to an oc-
casional glass is not to be interfered
with; but whether John Smith, having
a weakness for ans occasional glass
and bearing a grudge against his neigh
Dor, may go to the doggery, and after
having reused all the baser passions of
his nature by indulgence - having
gotten himself Fighting drunk"-may
happen to remember his grudge, and,
meeting his neighbor, may murder him
in his drunken rage.
Again, it is question involved in
this issue of "persenal liberty"
whether man is not public enemy
who keeps open, day and night, re-
sort which becomes the gathering
place for the vicious and dangerous
elements of society, whose sole occu-
patton it is to sell to them, as long
as they can beg, borrow or steal the
money, his vile decoctions, which can
not fail to render these persons still